At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a fool” (Prov. 10:18).
As we study the Scriptures, we are made well aware of the sinfulness of sin. Sin is bad, we know that. We shouldn’t do bad things because they are, well, bad. We learned that in Sunday School also.
But the Bible also teaches us, in multiple places but especially in Proverbs, that sin is stupid as well as being bad. Sin would be bad even if it were profitable, and it sometimes is profitable in the short term. But the Scriptures repeatedly teach us that sin is actually unprofitable. It does not achieve its desired or intended end.
In this proverb, the sin in question is hatred of the heart, hidden by means of lying lips. And the companion to this is slander of others. Piecing these two together, we see that when the person who is guilty of this is together with the person he hates, he keeps that hatred hidden by means of lies. They might be flattering lies, or nondescript lies, but they are lies that cover up the hatred, keeping it out of sight. And then when the victim of the hatred is out of sight, the hater vents, and it comes out in slander.
The bottom line of this proverb is that the person doing this—bottling up hatred, and then pouring it out in slander—is a fool. He thinks he is striking his enemy, but he is simply fouling his own nest.
As someone who has been slandered in many ways over many years, it is worth saying that it is not necessary to answer all your critics. And that is because you can see the fulfillment of this proverb in many of the cases if you simply say nothing and sit tight. I am not saying that it is always a mistake to answer a slander—the apostle Paul answers them. But I am saying that God governs the world in such a way that slanderers frequently fall into the pit they they dug for you.
